All member institutions within the Pac-12 Conference are now eligible to receive EYE-SYNC technology from SyncThink to further support the brain health of their student-athletes, according to a partnership agreement between the Pac-12 Conference and SyncThink.
As part of the Pac-12 Brain Trauma Task Force’s Equipment Grant Proposal—approved by the Pac-12 Student-Athlete Health and Well-Being Initiative Board—each participating school will receive two EYE-SYNC devices to capture objective brain health metrics among its member institutions, and to support national research on concussion currently underway within the NCAA.
In addition, the University of Colorado will be the Pac-12 Concussion Coordinating Unit to create a Conference-wide foundation of reliable, consistent, and uniform basic-level clinical brain trauma and concussion data among all Pac-12 institutions, notes a media release from SyncThink.
”The Pac-12 Conference, through our Student-Athlete Health and Well-Being Initiative, is committed to taking proactive steps to support the health and well-being of our student-athletes,” says Woodie Dixon, General Counsel and SVP, in the release. “We are excited to partner with SyncThink and their leading technologies to further research the understanding, diagnosis, and treatment of traumatic head injuries. We are equally excited that the University of Colorado will play a central role in supporting our concussion data needs.”
“This is a momentous day for both the Pac-12 Conference and SyncThink,” adds SyncThink founder Dr Jamshid Ghajar, in the release. “The Pac-12 has always been about excellence both on the field and off, including their commitment to providing cutting-edge solutions for their members. The EYE-SYNC platform is the latest example, representing the new frontier of brain health and performance.”
EYE-SYNC technology, an FDA Class II medical device, is an integrated, head-mounted eye-tracking virtual reality system used for recording, viewing, and analyzing eye movements in support of identifying visual tracking impairment.
The NCAA and the Department of Defense’s Concussion Assessment and Education (CARE) Consortium are supporting the Pac-12 Brain Trauma Task Force’s efforts by providing funding and establishing the Pac-12 as a CARE-Affiliated Program (CAP). The CARE Consortium was jointly created by the NCAA and Department of Defense and similarly studies frameworks to assess athletes preseason acutely post-injury, and throughout recovery using neurocognitive and behavior testing.
The creation of the Pac-12 Concussion Coordinating Unit (PCCU) was included in the CAP. As the PCCU, Colorado acts as the Conference’s administrative and operations coordinating unit for collecting and storing data, and coordinating the various digital databases, equipment vendors, program, university research offices, and the NCAA to ensure the proper implementation of the program and data collection system.
This is the first year of the CAP/Equipment Program. Deliveries of EYE-SYNC for review have recently begun, and full rollout to all the universities in the Pac-12 Conference will be complete in January, the release continues.
[Source: EyeSync]
